When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make or provide it domestically.” This sentence promoting offshore outsourcing of U.S. jobs to countries with cheaper labor was not found in a multinational corporation’s prospectus. It was among the Bush administration’s prescriptions for improving the U.S. economy presented to Congress in the “2004 Economic Report of the President.”

The administration’s endorsement of shipping jobs overseas met a bipartisan iceberg. “They’ve delivered a double blow to America’s workers, 3 million jobs destroyed on their watch, and now they want to export more of our jobs overseas,” AFT-endorsed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry told the Washington Post. Some Republicans called for the resignation of President Bush’s chief economist, N. Gregory Mankiw, who heads the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the brain trust behind the report as well as behind the false job growth projections—an average of 325,000 jobs a month—promised with passage of the administration’s tax cuts.

The White House quickly docked its support for shipping jobs overseas after a tidal wave of media coverage buoyed the bipartisan backlash. Nevertheless, the administration’s support for offshore outsourcing predates the February release of the report. In November 2003, the U.S. Commerce Department was among the hosts of a two-day economic and trade conference at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York, according to the International Herald Tribune (IHT).

“After opening speeches, the 50 or so American executives gathered at the Hotel Pennsylvania here were invited to divide up,” the IHT reported. “Those interested in investing in China—putting an operation there and hiring Chinese workers—were to go across the hall … Half or more went across the hall.” The article went on to observe that the U.S. “government agency most responsible for promoting American business is participating in conferences and workshops that encourage American companies to put operations and jobs in China.”

Combine President Bush’s wage-saving advice to companies with his vision for job training programs, and the economic realities for working families become more ominous, according to observers, such as Ross Eisenbrey, vice president and policy director of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

In an analysis of the president’s fiscal year 2005 budget that Eisenbrey submitted to the U.S. Committee on Ways and Means, he noted that the president calls for reductions in services and training programs for dislocated workers, including a $79 million reduction in dislocated worker formula grants to states. The president also keeps pushing to consolidate the Workforce Investment Act’s adult and dislocated worker programs, Employment Service state grants and reemployment service state grants into a single block grant.

“The president’s budget grossly underfunds the essential federal programs that provide a safety net for workers dislocated by trade, structural changes in the economy and off-shoring,” Eisenbrey said, concluding that “Congress must act to protect the future of these workers and their families.”

To view the “2004 Economic Report of the President,” visit www.gpoaccess.gov/eop/index.html. The outsourcing recommendation was made in Chapter 12, “International Trade and Cooperation.”